The Department of Near Eastern Studies offers instruction in the languages, literatures, histories, cultures, and religions of the ancient Near East and the medieval and modern Middle East. The department’s language offerings provide the foundation for the academic study of the literatures, histories, cultures, and religions of the region. The ancient language offerings include Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Avestan, Aramaic, and Classical Hebrew. The medieval and modern language offerings include Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and Uzbek.

Special Department Policy: The student must maintain at least a grade of a C in each term of a required concentration language. Those courses for which a student receives a lesser grade must be repeated.

Placement and Proficiency Tests
Language exams are for University of Michigan students who are planning on furthering their language study or want to test out of a language requirement. No preparation is necessary for the placement test – it is intended to be a tool to place you in the course most appropriate for your level.